November 04, 2008

TWD - Rugelach

I still can't believe I haven't made rugelach until now. Why not, Jayne? What were you waiting for?

I don't know. But I must say thank you to Grace of Piggy's Cooking Journal for selecting the recipe for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie event. You can find the recipe on her site, should you decide to make these yourself. And if you like tender, flaky bites of pastry with all sorts of crunchy and sweet goodness wrapped inside, then you HAVE to make these.

First I made the dough, which consists simply of cold, unsalted butter, cream cheese, flour, and salt.

Once it comes together, you divide, flatten, wrap and refrigerate it. Dorie recommends at least two hours. Mine was in there at least that long. I had a couple of different baking projects underway today, so while this dough was chilling, I just worked on the other project.

A bit later, I gathered together all my filling ingredients.

I used orange marmalade, raisins, chopped pecans, bittersweet chocolate, sugar and cinnamon. I'd intended to use dried cranberries instead of raisins, but then realized that I didn't HAVE dried cranberries on hand - I had frozen cranberries. So raisins it was. But I have to make them with cranberries some time soon. It just seems right.

When the time came to roll out the dough, I was, first of all, impressed with how easy it was to work and how thin I could roll it without catastrophe.

I know, it's not exactly a circle, but you don't really taste the circle in the final product.

I began to add the innards:

First the marmalade...

Then the mixture of cinnamon and sugar...

And then the chunky stuff - the raisins, nuts, and chopped chocolate.

Looks good enough to eat already. But I demonstrated restraint.

I took out my pizza wheel (the bigger one) and quickly sliced the circle-like shape into quarters and eighths and finally, sixteenths.

I found that the thin sections wanted to stick together, especially near the center, so I used a large offset spatula to gently lift each sixteenth from its neighbors.

Rolling them up was easy but a bit tricky thanks to all the fillings.

And eventually all 32 rugelach were formed. After re-chilling for about 45 minutes, the rugelach were brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with sparkling sugar.

And into the oven they went.

Mine baked for 27 minutes.

The melty marmalade leaked out and puddled a bit - I think I should have pulled them at 25 minutes, but no one else in my vicinity seemed concerned.

See this plateful of rugelach? There are about 30 of them there. I'd eaten one - you know, to make sure they came out okay, and my husband tried one because, well, there they were.

We have, maybe, 6 left.

Once I ate the first one, I realized how addictive they could become. Immediately, I put half in a little container and ran them across the street to my neighbor. She cursed me through a mouthful of rugelach as I ran back across the street, laughing evilly.

So far, my husband AND both my kids like them, so with luck I won't be able to stuff myself with the remaining rugelach.

Except that...well...it's late, and the kids have been in bed for a couple hours now...and Bill was tired so he just went upstairs...hmmm...maybe just one.

I'm sure there are plenty of TWD bakers with much more self control than I have. Go check out their versions of rugelach.

TrackBack

Comments

TWD - Rugelach

I still can't believe I haven't made rugelach until now. Why not, Jayne? What were you waiting for?

I don't know. But I must say thank you to Grace of Piggy's Cooking Journal for selecting the recipe for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie event. You can find the recipe on her site, should you decide to make these yourself. And if you like tender, flaky bites of pastry with all sorts of crunchy and sweet goodness wrapped inside, then you HAVE to make these.

First I made the dough, which consists simply of cold, unsalted butter, cream cheese, flour, and salt.

Once it comes together, you divide, flatten, wrap and refrigerate it. Dorie recommends at least two hours. Mine was in there at least that long. I had a couple of different baking projects underway today, so while this dough was chilling, I just worked on the other project.

A bit later, I gathered together all my filling ingredients.

I used orange marmalade, raisins, chopped pecans, bittersweet chocolate, sugar and cinnamon. I'd intended to use dried cranberries instead of raisins, but then realized that I didn't HAVE dried cranberries on hand - I had frozen cranberries. So raisins it was. But I have to make them with cranberries some time soon. It just seems right.

When the time came to roll out the dough, I was, first of all, impressed with how easy it was to work and how thin I could roll it without catastrophe.

I know, it's not exactly a circle, but you don't really taste the circle in the final product.

I began to add the innards:

First the marmalade...

Then the mixture of cinnamon and sugar...

And then the chunky stuff - the raisins, nuts, and chopped chocolate.

Looks good enough to eat already. But I demonstrated restraint.

I took out my pizza wheel (the bigger one) and quickly sliced the circle-like shape into quarters and eighths and finally, sixteenths.

I found that the thin sections wanted to stick together, especially near the center, so I used a large offset spatula to gently lift each sixteenth from its neighbors.

Rolling them up was easy but a bit tricky thanks to all the fillings.

And eventually all 32 rugelach were formed. After re-chilling for about 45 minutes, the rugelach were brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with sparkling sugar.

And into the oven they went.

Mine baked for 27 minutes.

The melty marmalade leaked out and puddled a bit - I think I should have pulled them at 25 minutes, but no one else in my vicinity seemed concerned.

See this plateful of rugelach? There are about 30 of them there. I'd eaten one - you know, to make sure they came out okay, and my husband tried one because, well, there they were.

We have, maybe, 6 left.

Once I ate the first one, I realized how addictive they could become. Immediately, I put half in a little container and ran them across the street to my neighbor. She cursed me through a mouthful of rugelach as I ran back across the street, laughing evilly.

So far, my husband AND both my kids like them, so with luck I won't be able to stuff myself with the remaining rugelach.

Except that...well...it's late, and the kids have been in bed for a couple hours now...and Bill was tired so he just went upstairs...hmmm...maybe just one.

I'm sure there are plenty of TWD bakers with much more self control than I have. Go check out their versions of rugelach.